How The Mind Works

Pinker uses many examples to explain his ideas of how the mind works and to counter arguments against his ideas. How does his use of examples help or hurt his ability to make his argument? What would you recommend to Pinker to improve the clarity and strength of his argument?

Natural selection lies at the crux of Pinker’s argument about how the mind works. However, he must contend with considerable criticism and resistance to this idea despite his wealth of examples that natural selection is the only way to explain the human mind. Help Pinker with his argument by finding a couple of examples or explanations you did not find convincing and describe what is incomplete about the explanation and what evidence is needed.

A key aspect of the misconceptions about natural selection, according to Pinker, is seeing the current function of an organ and thinking of it as the goal of its evolution. Pinker explains in several places that natural selection does not have goals. In your own words, explain Pinker’s argument for why we have arrived at such adaptive and amazing functions without any specific goal. Research an example not used in the book and explain how it could have evolved without an end goal (in other words, why it would have been adaptive).

This book was written in 1997 using scientific evidence available to that date. In the years since the book was written, what scientific advancements have been made that may support or call into question Pinker’s conclusions? Pick a field, such as genetics or psychology, and discuss recent advancements in the field and how those advancements work with Pinker’s description of how the mind works.

A key aspect of the computational theory of mind is the way smaller pieces can be combined and built to make larger pieces that can handle more complex operations. Considering your own education to date, how do we see this idea of building from smaller to larger pieces in the way we educate children? Use examples from modern education to show how we mirror the computational nature of the brain in education and examples of where we diverge from this approach.

Pinker divides his argument into eight chapters, some of which are 100 pages long. Some of his chapters flow from one to another, whereas other chapters start a new topic that connects back to previous chapters later. Discuss his organization of the book and how it helped or hindered your ability to follow the argument. How would you rearrange the book (or not) and why?

Pinker goes through the evolutionary utility of emotions and discusses some surprising ideas for why some emotions exist. Pick two or three ideas that were surprising or different to you and discuss how they diverged from other ideas or your own thoughts on how that emotion works.

Racism and classism are underlying issues in many of Pinker’s chapters. They are discussed most prominently in Chapter 5 when Pinker presents Wallace’s description of how natural selection applies to the mind and how it differed from Darwin’s description. It also comes up in discussions of emotion (Chapter 6) and relationships (Chapter 7). Pinker uses the Yanomamo people as an example of a society very different from modern industrialized nations but where we nonetheless see many similar behaviors and approaches to the world. Discuss how this undertone of racism and classism has affected understanding of the human mind and human evolution. Where else do you see these issues in Pinker’s book and in modern science?